"We've had that mutual respect and I saw how talented he was playing him twice past year and watching him the late games when I was in the Eastern Conference".

In addition to heaping praise on James, Walton noted the contribution of the entire team after a game in which Kyle Kuzma, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope all scored in double figures. The only National Basketball Association players to average at least 24 points and seven assists at age 22 or younger are Derrick Rose (2010-11), LeBron James (2004-05) and Oscar Robertson (1960-61). "Sometimes I wonder, 'How did we lose?' If feels like everybody's competing, but I try to go back and look at some of the numbers, it's kind of confusing because I know everybody was playing hard".

He captioned it with: "The best part about a post game win!"

Thursday's win snapped a two-game losing streak for the Lakers.

Lakers executive Magic Johnson called the report "wrong".

"We have a system that the ball moves around, a lot of pick-and-roll plays".

After LeBron James had slung a pass to Kuzma in the lane, the starting forward pump-faked before dumping the ball to Chandler for the jam.

"But, hey, we're the Lakers, people are going to be talking about us".